BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS & POLITICS BLOG 2017

If the IMF says it’s Joan Burton as next leader of the LP, then it must be so. No?

Joan Burton, the IMF’s approved leader for the Labour Party? A startling opinion from the IMF’s latest report. Anyone remember the days when the World Bank used to make and break “Third World” governments?

In its first post-bailout report on the Irish economy, it notes that the fall in support for the governing parties in the elections was widely seen as reflecting the cuts in expenditure and increases in taxation of recent years “together with the limited benefits, as yet, for the majority of the population of the emerging recovery”.

But it expresses confidence that the Joan Burton, whom it sees as the likely new leader of the Labour Party will not disrupt Ireland’s pursuit of 2015 fiscal targets.

And:

The “leading candidate” for the position of leader of the Labour Party “has indicated her intention that her intention is to remain in the coalition and to maintain the fiscal targets for 2015, “while also emphasising the need for social repair alongside economic repair”.

Is this not astounding stuff, not least given the fact that, as noted in the…

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